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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#971

Post by yellowapple »

LinXitoW wrote: post #635
yellowapple wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even accounting for the times things have gone “catastrophically wrong”, nuclear is many orders of magnitude safer per unit of energy than every other energy source except solar. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

These are death rates with the current saturation of plants. If we wanted to cover all of Europe, a much more densely populated area, with nuclear, the deaths (and other negative consequences) would be far greater, no?

The thing about nuclear is that the land area consumed per unit of energy is, like the deaths per unit of energy, extremely low. You can “cover all of Europe” without needing to put very many people (if any) in the potential exclusion zone.

Even with that being said, those safety numbers have held even with China building large numbers of reactors in relatively dense areas. I'd be surprised if European reactors turned out to pose much of a higher risk.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#972

Post by pfdietz »

mpweiher wrote: post #963
pfdietz wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's selective technological aspirationalism. Why is unbounded optimism appropriate for nuclear but not for renewables? The engineering principle of KISS says renewables should be much more improvable, as indeed the data indicates they are.

It's the other way around. Nuclear works now. We just have to build it. Intermittent renewables supplying an industrial society does not. And there is no way to get from here to there except a lot of handwaving and "magic happens here". https://image.slidesharecdn.com/20100608webcontentchicagosli...

PV has improved in cost/W by nearly three orders of magnitude since it was introduced, and by an order of magnitude since 2010.

Nuclear fans could only dream of this rate of improvement.

Nuclear doesn't work in the sense of being competitive. It's behind and falling farther behind with each passing day.

The best time to have given up on nuclear was decades ago. The second best time is now.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#973

Post by mastermage »

m101 wrote: post #561

I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.

Well, its wrong though. Its not the cheapest. Thats solar and by a long shot. Nuclear is literally the most expensive energy source. Also take into account the timeframe to build nuclear powerplants. 9 to 12 Years on average built time and delays often happen.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#974

Post by mastermage »

mpweiher wrote: post #963
pfdietz wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's selective technological aspirationalism. Why is unbounded optimism appropriate for nuclear but not for renewables? The engineering principle of KISS says renewables should be much more improvable, as indeed the data indicates they are.

It's the other way around. Nuclear works now. We just have to build it. Intermittent renewables supplying an industrial society does not. And there is no way to get from here to there except a lot of handwaving and "magic happens here". https://image.slidesharecdn.com/20100608webcontentchicagosli...

When you have to build Nuclear Reactors then this is not now. The avg. building time of Nuclear Reactors is 9-12 Years.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#975

Post by javcasas »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #426
javcasas wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with nuclear is not the ultra-low probability of incidents, but the potential size of the incidents. And then you have bad faith actors. No one would ever put graphite tips in the control rods to save some money, wouldn't they? No one would station troops during war in a nuclear power plant, wouldn't they? No one would use a nuclear power plant to breed material for nuclear bombs, wouldn't they? Finally,…

Climate change is planet wide. No nuclear incident has ever had such a widespread effect.

Have you heard about low-background steel? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

It became scarce because of some very widespread effect.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#976

Post by zekrioca »

UltraSane wrote: post #949
zekrioca wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever heard of batteries?

Nuclear at $6,000-12,000/kW installed capacity becomes cheaper than solar+battery somewhere between 1-3 days of required backup.

https://www.tesla.com/megapack

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#977

Post by zekrioca »

ackfoobar wrote: post #927
zekrioca wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever heard of batteries?

Have you done the math of how insufficient battery tech is, if we are to go 100% renewable? I'm so tired of renewable proponents just use the thought terminating cliche "BATTERIES!" when intermittency is brought up.

https://www.tesla.com/megapack

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#978

Post by mbs159 »

nilslindemann wrote: post #843
dijit wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem of course is that coal is killing much more people than any nuclear disaster ever did (per unit of energy delivered). But because it’s so spread and so normalised and not so bombastic, we don’t even consider it. The number of lives saved by using nuclear energy is easily in the tens of thousands even with disasters like Chernobyl. Although of course it has to be stated that the USSR moved to heaven a…

And brown bears are less dangerous than cars because fewer people are killed by them. If you see a car, RUN. They are dangerous. Brown bears, not so much. Go ahead, pat their fur, statistically this is safe.

You generally can't really pet a wild brown bear, since they are not interested in humans and would avoid you. You can't run away from it either, since it can outrun you easily

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#979

Post by account42 »

teamonkey wrote: post #724
m101 wrote: post #561

I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.

> I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. The context is a long string of nuclear incidents throughout the Cold War through to the ‘90s. Not just Chernobyl, not just Fukushima, but the string of disasters at Windscale / Sellafield and many others across the globe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident... https://en.wik…

People fear what the media tells them to fear. I still remember the (publicly funded so not really independent from government) TV here having someone refer to a beech near Fukushima as "possibly one of the most dangerous places on earth" while holding up a Geiger counter that showed radiation levels barely above background levels.

Nuclear accidents have been a nothing-burger compared to all the deaths and health issues caused by coal and gas - but those are more spread out over time and don't make for as exciting news so no one cares. Shutting down nuclear instead of coal was never a rational decision but an emotional one.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#980

Post by account42 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #932
gilbetron wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet if you look at the "Fatalities" column, you see a stream of zeroes with a handful of non-zeroes, the worst being Chernobyl at 50 direct fatalities. Rooftop solar accounts for more deaths. Nuke plants are scary when they fail, but the actual threat is way lower than we play it out to be.

It's not just about deaths. That's the thing. People can get sick, the environment gets polluted. A whole town got pulled out of their flats and was never allowed back. The area will remain closed for generations. Counting deaths does not do the actual damage justice.

How many towns were closed in order to strip mine coal? And no, that's not just a thing of the past but still happening today.

How many people's health was impacted from coal and coal burning exhaust, which btw. also includes radioactive particles.

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